While many others normally place a moratorium on the internet during Lent, here at The Voice of Stefan all internet activities have instead been held in abeyance during the first 40 days of the Paschal season, which end today. It was a stroke of genius, I admit it: shattering expectations and holding all in suspense, while creating a space for the wildest speculations. Brilliant!
Of course, the real reason I haven't been posting for the past few weeks is that life has decided to take a great many turns of late, and I have suddenly found myself in the hinterlands Michigan, completely surrounded by no internet. (And if you fail to recognize this last line as both a reference and a deep nod to Keeping Up Appearances' Onslow, well, you should be, of all [women and] men, most to be pitied.) I should be back home not many weeks hence, at which point posting will resume at its normal speed. Which is not much, as we all know, but it's still better than nothing.
Noteworthy highlights from my trip to Michigan thus far include the following:
- I paid a visit to that wretched emporium of blasphemous Christian trinketry, the Family Christian Stores, where I saw a guitar pick with the words "Pick Jesus!" printed in the front and Romans 10:13 printed in the back, as well as an idolatrous t-shirt that read, "JesUSAves";
- I finally picked up a copy of the Holman Christian Standard Bible, which for all of its defects, allows me the pleasure to see on a printed page St John 3:16 excellently and unambiguously translated ("For God loved the world in this way...");
- At a lovely nearby parish of the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Metropolia, I've been treated several times, much to my perverse amusement, to a setting of the Prayer Before Holy Communion ("I believe, O Lord, and I confess...") to the tune of—wait for it—Just As I Am (see for yourselves).
Clearly, the fun never ceases.
My limited internet time is about up, but I expect to check in at least a few times before I return home (and perhaps even to post one of those reviews on which I've been working!). In the meantime, and for the last time this Paschal season (as it is now nearly time for the Vigil of the Feast of the Ascension), allow me to say once again to one and all with great joy:
CHRIST IS RISEN! TRULY RISEN!
